Knoll Designer Bios

Paul Haigh

b. England, 1949

Paul Haigh studied furniture design at Leeds Polytechnic and continued at the Royal College of Art in London. He is the principle of his own studio, HAIGHArchitects, which he founded in 1985. Apart from architecture, his diverse portfolio includes furniture, object, and lighting designs. His work has been awarded and exhibited around the world.

Haigh arrived at Knoll in 1978 and began work on a table system he originally conceived as one of his thesis designs at the Royal College of Art in London. The table design combined extruded leg and rail elements, joined by a simple, stylish corner connector in a manner that allowed the greatest number of variations from the least number of components. At introduction, Knoll offered sixty-four different models, for contract and residential applications.*

In 1980, Haigh was responsible for planning and designing the Knoll Design Center, a New York facility conceived to serve as a showroom for both residential and office collections, as well as the hub of Knoll sales and marketing.